


Yu(u)ri and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

by ladymurloc, louciferish



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Awkward Crush, Awkwardness, Gen, Hero Worship, Junior Yuuri, Kid Fic, Novice Yuri, Pining, Pre-Canon, references to real-life skaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 17:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14241918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymurloc/pseuds/ladymurloc, https://archiveofourown.org/users/louciferish/pseuds/louciferish
Summary: Yuri stumbles to his feet, banging his knees on the hard plastic seat in his haste. He wants to say something, but his voice catches in his throat and he feels his face heat as the older boy stares down at him. Oh god, is he blushing?





	1. Yuri

**Author's Note:**

> Cowritten for the LLYBB Bing #2 with the prompt, "Fumes".
> 
> Original story concept by ladymurloc. Betaing by [tigerpiidge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerpiidge/pseuds/tigerpiidge). 
> 
> First chapter: louciferish  
> Second chapter: ladymurloc

Grandpa must have told him a dozen times during the long drive to the airport to be on his _best_ behavior. Yuri tries to remember that the entire flight. He doesn’t kick the back of Georgi’s seat, even though it’s tempting when he starts singing along to the pop music in his headphones. He doesn’t even steal Coach’s package of cookies from the seatback pocket while he sleeps, even though he _really_ wants to, especially once Coach starts snoring.

Between the chainsaw running in the seat next to him and the thrill of being on a plane for the first time, Yuri doesn’t sleep a wink. Standing by the baggage carousel after they land in Tokyo, he knows he should be looking around all all the new sights, but he can’t stop rubbing his eyes. He yawns wide for the fiftieth time and stumbles. 

Victor elbows Georgi, staring at him. “Yurachka, did you not sleep on the flight?” Georgi bends down close and pats him on the head. “You need to rest if you’re going to keep up with us all week.”

Coach Feltsman frowns at him, looking much like a frog who swallowed a bee instead of a fly. “Georgi’s right. We can drop you off at the hotel if you’re too tired to come with us today.”

“But then won’t one of us have to stay at the hotel too?” Victor interjects. “We can’t leave a child in a foreign hotel by himself.” 

All Yuri wants is to get to the hotel and sleep until the competition starts, but he can’t let the others get away with treating him like a baby. “I’m fine,” he says, crossing his arms. “I can keep up.”

Their baggage finally arrives, and they all pile into a taxi together. Coach gives the driver directions to go straight to the rink, and then Yuri has to drag his suitcase from the trunk and lug it up the sidewalk and into the building on his own, trailing along well behind the senior skaters and their Coach. 

He wants to just lie down on the cool concrete and nap right inside the doors. He shakes his head, fighting to stay awake as they file into the arena. Coach Feltsman didn’t have to bring him. He’s lucky to be here, lucky that Coach sees so much “promise” as to let him tag along on a big senior competition like this, especially with him being just a novice still. There are juniors who would kill him for a chance to be in his place right now, and a few have tried.

But it’s really hard to remember that when all he wants is to stomp his foot and demand they take him back to a bed.

As Coach walks around the outside of the rink with the seniors, Yuri hangs back, sitting down in the first row of the stands with his head in his hands. A few people are running around the rink, mostly kids and teenagers in staff t-shirts, chattering with each other in rapidfire Japanese. Yuri learned a few words and phrases before the trip, just to be able to be polite, but it all sounds like gibberish to him right now.

Suddenly, he hears his name, clear amid the jumble of foreign words. He raises his head, but no one is looking at him; their eyes are raised above his seat, to a booth a few rows away, where a Japanese boy in a blue and black jacket is pinning up a large banner. The boy turns and raises his hand in a wave to the other teenagers, and Yuri’s eyes widen, his fatigue falling away. Yuuri. That’s _Katsuki_ Yuuri, the Junior Worlds gold medalist.

Yuri stumbles to his feet, banging his knees on the hard plastic seat in his haste. He wants to say something, but his voice catches in his throat and he feels his face heat as the older boy stares down at him. Oh god, is he _blushing_ right now? He doesn’t blush!

“Yuri!” He whips around at Coach Feltsman’s yell. The team is heading back toward him from the other side of the ice. 

Now that Yuri can finally get to the hotel, he’s wired. He's not ready to leave yet! He looks back in the stands for another glimpse of Katsuki, but the junior champion has disappeared. His shoulders slump as Coach calls to him once again, and he grabs the handle of his suitcase and jogs to catch up with the team.

-

They arrive at the rink for practice way too early the next morning, and Yuri is still wiped from travel. It doesn’t help that he had to share a room with Coach, who snores worse than Grandpa. Yuri’s surprised anyone ever manages to share a bedroom with the man. 

He’s supposed to be watching practice skates all day today. Learning from the senior skaters is the whole point of coming on this trip, so he needs a really _good_ excuse if anyone asks him how he wound up sneaking around the back hallways of the arena while the Russian team is on the ice.

He’s pretty sure he can still get away with saying he got lost on the way to the bathroom. He’ll only feel a little guilty about lying to Coach Feltsman. 

The thing is, Victor and Georgi are great skaters, but they’re adults. They live in this whole other world from the reality of being underestimated and ignored as a kid. Even though Katsuki Yuuri is almost a grown-up at seventeen, Yuri knows that if anyone understands being underestimated it’s the skater who jumped from 4th place to gold with a world record PCS in his free skate.

Yuri needs to know how he did it, where he studied ballet, what kind of other classes he takes, and if he likes cats. 

But before he can ask Katsuki these important questions, he needs to find him. Yuri had spotted him as soon as he entered the rink this morning, still hanging banners and helping to clean the rink with the other volunteers. Yuri thought he’d be hard to miss as the only volunteer wearing that jacket over his staff shirt.

But then Yuri had looked away for one minute to respond to something Georgi said, and when he looked back, Katsuki had vanished. All he saw was the flash of his back disappearing into the back hallways of the arena, and Yuri took off in pursuit.

Now Yuri’s been wandering the halls for quite a while, but there’s no sign of the older skater. The only other people he’s even seen back here were a couple janitors and a few other novices getting ready to go out and watch the practice.

Rounding the corner, he hears the distinct purr of the zamboni starting up and finally sights his target. Katsuki is in the driver’s seat of the zamboni, slowly backing out onto the ice. Yuri starts to jog to catch up, then spots something dangling from the nose of the zamboni. It flops onto the floor as the machine slowly pulls out.

It’s Katsuki’s jacket. The zamboni stops as the older boy realizes what happened too. Yuri stoops down to grab the jacket and return it, only to see another hand snatch it up. He was so close to having it that the fabric brushes his fingertips as it’s pulled away. He lunges after it, grabbing the end of a sleeve.

He looks up and meets the startled eyes of a Japanese boy with bottle blond hair and a red streak that looks like it was added with washable marker. He’s about Yuri’s age and wearing the same generic black bodysuit as all the other novices who’ll be retrieving gifts from the ice during the competition.

“I got this,” Yuri says. “I’ll take it back to him.”

The other boy’s eyes grow to the size of dinner plates, but he doesn’t hand over the jacket. Oh, right. He probably doesn’t speak Russian.

All he can say in Japanese is thank you and hello. English has never been Yuri’s best subject, but he combs his brain for whatever words he can muster. Finally, he grates out a heavily accented, “Let. Go.”

The other kid just stares at him for a long moment, then says, “No.”

Yuri pulls hard on the sleeve. The other kid pulls back. They’re at a stalemate. Yuri reaches over and starts trying to slap the other boy’s hand off the jacket. He stares at Yuri in shock, and his lower lip starts to tremble. Good.

“Let. Go,” Yuri repeats, pulling as hard as he can.

“ _Both_ of you need to let go,” a familiar voice says in accented English. A larger hand reaches down and pulls the jacket away, shaking them off like fleas from a dog’s back.

Victor holds to jacket above his head, and Yuri jumps up, grabbing for it. “Let me have it,” he hisses in Russian. “I saw it first. I just want to give it back to Katsuki!”

The blond boy starts waving his arms around, speaking just as emphatically in Japanese.

“What is wrong with you?” Victor stands up on his tiptoes, still holding the jacket away from Yuri’s grasping hands. “Have the Zamboni fumes gone to your head or something?” He looks over the boys’ heads at the wide-eyed Zamboni driver and a slow grin spreads across his face.

“ _Yura_ ,” he sing-songs. “Do you have a little crush on the Zamboni boy?” He pauses, narrowing his eyes and looking Katsuki over thoroughly. “Well, at least your taste isn’t terrible,” he adds with a chuckle, then saunters right between the two novices to pass the jacket back to its owner.

“Here you go,” he smiles and winks broadly at Katsuki, who stutters a thank you, the jacket dangling limp from his hands.

“Come on, now, Yura,” Victor says, grabbing Yuri by the hood of his sweatshirt. “Yakov has been looking all over for you. I can’t wait to tell Georgi you were back here chasing around an older man at your age. He’s going to _love_ it.”

Yuri twists out of his grip. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” he hisses, striding away down the hall as fast as his legs can carry him without breaking into a trot. Why does Victor have to be such a jerk? Yuri will show him he’s no joke. Give him a couple years, and he’ll show them _all_.


	2. Yuuri

“Hey, Yuuri.” Minako’s voice rang out above the soft music playing from an old boombox sitting in the corner of the dance studio.

Yuuri was at the barre slowly going through his stretches. “Hm?” Looking up, he watched Minako in the reflection of the mirror. She was leaning against the doorway, arms folded across her body and brows raised in question. Something in her expression made Yuuri’s stomach flip with a burst of anxiety. “What is it?” He pressed as the silence between them stretched on. 

“How come I’m getting calls from the JSF about you?”

“Eh?” Yuuri froze mid-leg extension. “W-What do you mean?” He asked as he slowly lowered his leg back to the ground and turned to face Minako, giving her his full attention.

Unfolding her arms, she brought one of her hands up to examine her nails as if they were more fascinating than the conversation they were having at present. “Oh, you know,” she drawled. “Just wondering if there was nothing they could do to persuade you to come to Tokyo next week since you’re _apparently_ unavailable to show your face at the NHK Trophy.” 

The thing was, figure skating was popular in Japan. As much as the two senior division skaters, Oda Nobunari and Takahashi Daisuke, were well loved by the public, no one really knew about the juniors. With both Oda and Takahashi nearing retirement, it made sense that the JSF would want the up and coming skaters there, especially reigning Junior World Champion Yuuri Katsuki. He should have known that his conversation with them a week ago explaining that he couldn’t go wouldn’t be the end of it.

It wasn’t that Yuuri didn’t want to go. _Victor Nikiforov_ was going to be there and passing up on the chance to see him perform live was just about soul-crushing, but the Japanese seniors would be there as well. The last time Yuuri had seen Oda he’d thrown up on his skates. 

Yuuri could never face him again.

Briefly Yuuri wondered if it was too late to sell his soul to the devil to save himself from the inevitable reckoning waiting for him. Even if the floor did open up beneath his feet, he could picture Minako jumping in after him. Satan didn’t deserve that.

“I’ll take your silence as an admission of guilt,” Minako said firmly as she pushed away from the door frame and stepped into the room. “Pack your bags, kiddo. We’re leaving for Tokyo on Friday.” Her hands clapped together as she moved into the room, effectively ending the conversation. “Alright, time to get to work.” 

The sports complex was bustling with volunteers and various ISU and JSF officials when Yuuri showed up to check in that weekend. Minako’s promise to pick him up in a few hours to go out sightseeing were still ringing in his ears as he traded his credentials in for an official “staff” t-shirt and a packet full of itineraries and passes he would need for the next few days.

“All of the junior volunteers are meeting up by the men’s locker room to get assignments,” the woman at the check-in booth said as she passed back his badge. 

“Thank you.” Yuuri bowed and, as he straightened, quickly grabbed his things up from the check-in table. Behind him, a small line was beginning to form. He recognized one of the coaches and behind him one of his fellow local juniors just entering the arena. 

“Katsuki-san!” A voice called out just as Yuuri was beginning to step away. Looking up, his stomach filled with dread. He recognized the coach because it was Oda’s. Oda was there, smiling at him, waving at him. _Oh no._

Stuttering out several quick apologies, Yuuri bowed deeply once then twice before he turned on his heel and practically ran for the locker room.

Logically, Yuuri realized that it didn’t make much sense for Oda to come looking for him, but logic had long since left the building. If he wasn’t quick his senior could totally come in there and corner him! The thought set him even more on edge than giving an interview with Morooka. Glancing around, he found an empty locker and stripped off the shirt he’d put on that morning, stuffing it inside. He briefly considered tossing his team Japan jacket in there as well as he dressed in his new volunteer garb but quickly discarded that idea. The rink was frigid and no amount of shame was worth freezing to death for.

Leaving the locker room, Oda was nowhere to be seen. More than likely he’d simply signed in and left, but Yuuri’s mind supplied images of the senior hiding behind corners waiting to pounce. 

Shaking his head, he went over to the table that had been set up for the volunteers, where several other kids around his age and younger milling about. Grabbing a stack of banners to hang, he was off. 

“Yuuri-kun!” One of the juniors from his region called out to him as the day began to wind down. Sakoto, he thinks is her name, but he can’t really remember for certain. He turned back to the poster and finished pinning it in place before he finally turned and waved awkwardly at her as she caught up to him.

“A couple of us were thinking about going to get dinner when we finish up. Do you want to come?” She asked.

“Um…” he started but quite frankly didn’t know what to say. Thankfully, he didn’t have to as a loud crash startled the pair of them. Off in the stands, he noticed a blonde boy wincing. Yuuri flinched in sympathy for him. With a face as red as that Yuuri imagined that the kid must have really hurt himself.

“Well…?” Sakoto asked once more, drawing Yuuri’s attention back to her. 

“Uh, I--”

“Yuri!” The gruff call of his name cut off whatever else he’d been about to say. 

Jerking, Yuuri looked behind Sakoto. On the other side of the ice is none other than Yakov Feltsman and the entire Russian team. Yuuri couldn’t breathe.

“Yuuri-kun? Are you alright?”

“I uh.” Yuuri squeaked, his cheeks going bright red. “Yes! I um. Yes!” 

“Ah! Great. So you’ll go with us? Perfect! We’re going to leave in about twenty minutes. Come on.” Sakoto grabbed his arm and dragged him in the opposite direction. 

Yuuri had never been so grateful and mad about something in his life.

Day two dawned bright and early. Minako dropped him off after a quick breakfast, but well before the practice was scheduled to begin. Yuuri was already hard at work by the time the first practice group had arrived.

As the men took to the ice, Yuuri found himself lingering by the edge of the rink. That was dangerous. Oda was supposed to be practicing in this group, and the last thing he wanted was to run into him again, but _Victor_ was out there too. 

They were just starting to skate laps and do an occasional compulsory figure, just warming up. Familiar music started up, swelling and filling the arena. Yuuri’s heart thudded painfully hard in his chest. That was Victor’s free skate. His breath caught as the man in question skated out into the center of the ice and launched himself into the air. Eyes going wide, Yuuri could do nothing but stare as Victor landed, perfectly executing a quad flip and glide out into a spread eagle. Yuuri was certain he had never seen anyone move as beautifully as that. 

“Katsuki-san! We meet again.” A hand clamped down firmly on Yuuri’s shoulder.

_Crap._

The spell was broken. With one call of his name, Yuuri had plunged from the heights of heaven straight into the depth of hell. Staring down at him was Oda Nobunari. 

This was surely the best and worst day of Yuuri’s life.

“Oda-s-senpai!” Jumping back Yuuri bowed deeply just like he had the day before. “Good luck with the competition tomorrow! I can’t wait to see you skate! I-I have to go help now. B-Bye!” 

Feeling like an absolute fool, Yuuri turned tail and ran once more. 

The morning became something of a game after that. Yuuri moved quickly from task to task, stocking stalls with merchandise, making sure bathrooms were well stocked, and even running back documents between ISU officials. 

“Good work everyone! Lets go ahead and get the ice patched up for the next group of skaters and then take some time for lunch.” One of the event coordinators called as the practice session came to a close.

Around him, everyone was gathering up buckets of shaved ice to pack in whatever holes were made from the skaters toe picks. “Katsuki-san.” The coordinator called out to Yuuri as he shuffled off to join the others. 

“Yes?” He asked as he slowed to a stop.

“Would you like to operate the Zamboni?” 

Yuuri had never actually used a Zamboni before, but he figured it couldn’t be _that_ hard. “Sure.” He answered without much thought.

That morning the arena had been frigid, but seated atop the Zamboni Yuuri is anything but. Pulling off his jacket, he made to fold it up and drape it over the back of his seat, only to drop it. Uselessly he watched it fall away. “Ah…” He sighed and moved to stand and go retrieve it, only to freeze and blink when two small figures appeared out of nowhere, grabbing the fallen jacket at the same time.

Were two kids actually fighting over his jacket? Maybe the fumes were starting to get to him. “Ano…” He said hesitantly, reaching out towards the pair as if he might manage to break them up from his spot perched atop the Zamboni. 

“Can I…” They were ignoring him. Great. Children were ignoring him.

Reaching up beneath his glasses, Yuuri rubbed at his eyes hard, digging the heels of his palms in. When he looked back at the sight before him was still the same. He _had_ to be high from Zamboni fumes.

Victor Nikiforov was standing directly in front of him. Looking at him! Victor Nikiforov was holding his jacket!! Victor Nikiforov was handing him his jacket!!! Speaking to him!!!!

It took a second for Yuuri’s brain to catch up. Victor was already turning away to collect the small blonde child, Yura. “A-Ah!” He called out. “T-Thank you!” Cringing internally, he slumped back and clutched his jacket to his chest. 

This was the best day of his life and it had to be shared, Zamboni be damned.

Climbing off the still running Zamboni, Yuuri clutched at his phone and darted for the bathroom. His shoulder slammed into the door and he stumbled inside. As the line connected, he screeched nonsensically into the mic at Yuuko. She would understand his pterodactyl sounds. It was a language they had perfected together, after all. Somewhere inside one of the stalls a toilet flushed.

 _No._ Yuuri went ramrod straight, his body freezing.

 _”Hello? Yuuri?_ He could hear Yuuko’s muffled words through the speaker, but he couldn’t move.

A stall door swung open and out walked Oda, a strained smile tugging at his lips.

Behind him the door swung open, barely knocking into his back. “Ah! Katsuki-san! Just who I’ve been looking for.” It was Takahashi, the other senior skater.

Looking up for the first time, he seemed to notice Oda at the sinks, washing his hands. “Ah! Oda-san. Even better. The two of us were wanting to treat you to dinner for all your hard work!” 

Yuuri had been wrong. This was the worst day of his life.


End file.
